Another "What If" scenario - I was thinking about what might have happened if Kate went to her father's cabin to recuperate after being shot during 3X24 "Knockout."

"Katie?"

Jim Beckett peered through the doorway of his daughter's bedroom and smiled. She sat in the middle of the double bed, feet flat on the mattress, book propped up on her thighs. How many times had she sat in that exact spot? He briefly remembered her endless excitement every time they came to their Pennsylvania cabin. She was always so excited to come and sleep in the big bed. Unlike her single bed in their modest New York apartment, this bed made her feel like an adult.

"Yeah Dad?" she asked, looking up over her knees.

"I'm heading out," he informed her. "You're sure you don't want to come?"

Bowling with her Dad's cabin buddies? As thrilling as that sounded… "I'm sure."

"You'll be okay by yourself?"

"Dad," she groaned as she sat upright, crossing her legs beneath her. She let the book flip shut but kept one index finger inside, marking her spot. "I'm fine. I've got my book," she added with a smile, gesturing with the well-worn In a Hail of Bullets. So she was reading all is books over again in the order he wrote them? There was nothing wrong with that.

"It's just," he paused, resting his shoulder against the doorframe. Carefully choosing his words, he continued. "I'm worried about you, Katie. You-you shouldn't be alone."

She gave him a mildly annoyed expression. "Dad, I told you I'm-"

"I know what you said, but that's not what I see. I just thought you might want-" He was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. He continued with a smile, "a friend."

Curious, Kate looked in the direction of the noise. "I thought you were meeting the guys there?"

"I am," he said with a proud smile. "The knock is for you."

Perplexed as to what her father was speaking about, she set down her book, and unfolded herself from the bed. She padded her way to the hall just as her father opened the door.

"Rick! Thanks for coming."

"Jim! Thanks for inviting me," he echoed as he stepped inside. "This is a great place you've got—Kate." He stopped when he saw her—and her scowl—across the hall.

Her eyes moved slowly from her partner to her father. "You called Castle?" she asked as she folded her arms over her chest.

Jim's only reply was to smile and grab his car keys from the hook beside the door. "You two kids have a good night. I'll be back around eleven."

A moment of silence hung between them when they stood alone in the hall before he broke it by saying, "So this is your dad's cabin, huh? Nice."

She ignored this and went directly into her well-perfected interrogation mode. "So my dad called you, did he?"

He took a step towards her and nodded. "Well, yeah, he said I should come for a visit and-"

"He wanted you to come for a visit? At seven-thirty on a Friday night?"

"Well, no, not specifically. He didn't really say when he just said I should come and I had this meeting with my editor and you know how bad traffic is in the city on a Friday and-"

"So why'd you bother coming then?" she challenged.

He opened his mouth to respond then stopped and looked at her, his blood pressure rising slightly. "Why? Is it not okay that I'm here? Do you not want me here? Is that why you haven't called me, Kate?"

Eight weeks. It had been eight weeks since Montgomery's funeral and the shooting. It had been Seven weeks, six days, four hours and twelve minutes since he'd spoken to her in her hospital room and she'd promised to call him. Not that he was counting or anything.

He knew she spent two weeks in the hospital before being released in to the care of her father. Esposito told him that. Esposito was allowed to visit her. So was Ryan. And of course Lanie. Everyone but him.

Instead of responding to him, she stared at him for a moment before letting her arms drop to her sides. She turned and walked through the kitchen to the sitting room on the opposite side of the house. She stopped at the edge of the sofa, but did not sit down. A moment later, he followed her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't come here to…" he let his voice trail off. Why had he come that night? Why had he fought city traffic and dark, winding, tree-lined roads to see her that evening. "I just wanted to see if you were okay. Are you okay?"

She let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah I'm fine, Castle; I'm great. Except I can't do anything. Nothing. In the city, I was pacing my apartment like a lion at the zoo, so my dad brought me here a week ago thinking it would make me relax but I, ah-"

"You're incapable of relaxation, I know," he said, smiling softly at her.

"Not incapable," she countered. "I would just…prefer to do something else."

"That bullet in your chest begs to differ."

She flashed him a wry smile before sitting down on one end of the couch. He walked over and sat on the adjoining cushion. They were silent for a few moments, he watched her as she stared distantly across the room.

"I was going to call you," she said, still not looking at him. "I was just…you know, thinking about some things."

"What things?" he asked. He knew how to get her to open up, twisted as it was. Three years taught him that. He had to poke and prod until she was mad—not pissed off, but mad—mad enough to get a crack in those walls and let some truth spill out. It was a delicate balance between mad and pissed off, which would put an iron padlock around those walls, but he was always up to the challenge.

"Just things, okay Castle?" she asked, a little edge in her tone.

"Like Montgomery dying?" he asked. Then, after a moment of silence, "Like being shot?"

She shook her head and pushed herself off the couch. "You don't know, Castle, so don't pretend like you do."

He slid to the edge of his seat, clasped his hands in his lap and said, "I think I do know. I think-"

"No!" she insisted, whipping around to face him. "You don't know, Castle. How could you know? How could you know what this feels like?" She grabbed the zipper on her NYPD sweatshirt and tugged it halfway down revealing the angry scar between her breasts. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye as she spoke. "This isn't one of your books, Castle. You don't know what it feels like to have a bullet in your heart. You might think you know, but you don't."

He stood so that they were facing one another. He stole a glance down to her chest and felt a sick feeling in his gut at the raw skin left behind from suturing the wound. He swallowed hard and looked back up at her. "You're right. I don't know what it's like to be shot, but I do know what it's like to be in the ambulance when your heart stopped. You don't remember, but I do. I remember every second. I remember watching you flat line and begging you to come back. So no, I don't know how it feels to be shot, but I do know how it feels to watch you die."

His words struck her like another bullet only this time in the gut. Her stomach churned when she saw the look in his eyes, the pain. She couldn't imagine watching someone she cared about—her partner—die. In fact, she imagined that to be a fate worse than death, having to live on knowing they couldn't be with you. Still, it wasn't just the bullet wound she was healing from.

When she said nothing, he took a step back and dropped his chin. "I'm sorry. I, ah, I didn't come here to fight so maybe-"

"I don't want you to go," she said, placing her hand gently on his arm when she spoke. She gestured towards the couch and he returned to his seat cushion.

After taking her spot on the end of the couch, she tucked one leg under her, clasped her hands in her lap and faced him. "I meant what I said before, I needed some time—time alone. It was wrong of me not to let you know I was okay, and I'm sorry for that, but I still need time, Castle. Everything happened so fast that I didn't even get a chance to breathe…Montgomery, my mother's killer, my shooter. Sometimes when I think about it just…I can't breathe."

"Kate," he said, placing one hand atop her intertwined fists. "You don't have to go through this alone. In fact, I've been doing some-"

"Not now, Castle," she shook her head.

He smiled and gave a single nod. "When you're ready then."

She mirrored his expression. "Thank you."

He nodded again. "So…what have you been doing in the woods? Is there…isn't," he paused to crane his neck and survey the cabin. "Isn't there a TV here?"

"Nope, no TV. No radio. Dad says he comes up here to disconnect from those things."

"I guess that means there also isn't," he dipped his hand in his pocket to pull out his iPhone, "cell reception."

"In the house, no, but sometimes you can get one bar if you're standing on the driveway with your phone above your head."

He grinned. "Discovered that, did you?"

"There are only so many crossword puzzles a girl can do."

"Crossword puzzles? What else?"

"Um, jigsaw puzzles. When I was younger, my parents would give me a new one for Christmas every year and my goal was to have it finished by New Year's."

He smiled. "Every year I would give Alexis a holiday-themed book for Christmas and we'd read it together every night, making sure we'd be done by New Year's when—as Alexis told me when she was five years old—Christmas retired until the next year."

Kate smiled and rested her elbows on her thighs. "Did you read to her?" He nodded. "I bet you were good at that—all the different voices."

"Uh, yeah," he said in an isn't-it-obvious tone. "But I only became really good at it after Mother wrote reviews for each of my voices and explained why they did or did not fit the character."

She laughed and nodded her head, able to visualize that scenario perfectly. Without thinking twice about it, she asked, "Why don't you read to me?"

"To you? Now?" he asked, his voice ringing with surprise.

She nodded "I was reading earlier, but now I'm feeling kind of tired."

"What were you reading?"

"It's in on the bed; why don't you go get it," she told him simply.

He stood and returned to the hallway where he poked his head in the first doorway—the one she had been standing in when he came in the house. Spotting the book she referred to, he crossed the room and smiled endlessly when he eyed the book jacket. "In a Hail of Bullets," he read loudly as he returned to the sofa. "Pulling from the Richard Castle library, I see."

"Eh, well, there wasn't really much around to read so…" she let her voice trail off with a shrug.

"So," he said, sitting back down on the couch. "Where did you leave off?"

"Chapter six," she told him. She scooted herself closer to him on the couch so that their shoulders were touching. Then, as he opened the book and began to read, she dropped her head down on to his shoulder. His heart rate spiked at her action and he thought about saying something, but decided it was best not to acknowledge it and risk her moving.

Two chapters later, he marveled at his own literary brilliance as he read, practically forgetting that he was reading to her and not for himself; it had been quite some time since he'd re-read his inaugural novel. Just as he was about to begin the eighth chapter, he realized just how heavy she felt against his arm. He listened closely and concluded that she was asleep.

With steady, deliberate motions, he put the book on the cushion beside him. He shifted his body towards her and slid his right arm underneath her knees, while cradling her back with his left. He stood as smoothly as he could before beginning the trek across the house.

Once in the bedroom, he sidled around to the far side of the bed where the covers were already in disarray. He gingerly lowered her down on to the mattress and slid his arms away evenly. When she was down, he stood and smiled proudly at the fact that he did not wake her. He took one step away and the floorboard creaked. He froze and cursed himself.

"Mm Castle?" she mumbled.

"It's okay," he whispered. "I put you in bed. Goodni-"

"No," she mumbled, lifting up her arm and groping blindly in to the air. He held out his hand and she grabbed on to it. "Stay."

He took a moment—a very brief one—to weigh those options. Sharing a small bed with Kate? Or crashing on a lumpy couch? Talk about a no-brainer.

He slid his hand from her grasp and turned off the bedside lamp. Then, using the ambient light from the hallway and his fingertips on the edge of the bed as a guide, he made his way to the other side. He toed off his loafers before sitting down and stretching out, keeping to his side of the narrow mattress as best he could.

Kate made an incoherent mumbled as she rolled over to face the center of the bed. She reached out one of her hands and sloppily groped until she found his arm. Then, she slid her hand down to his wrist and laced her fingers in to his before drifting back to sleep.

She awoke with a gasp, sweat pouring down her temples. She couldn't breathe; she was suffocating. She clawed at her throat, trying to scream but nothing was coming out. Suddenly, two strong hands were on her arms.

"Kate. Kate! Calm down, Kate; you're alright. You're okay."

"Can't breathe," she spluttered. "I can't…can't breathe."

"Yes you can," he told her, his voice stead. "Yes you can. Listen to me—breathe in and breathe out. Slowly. That's it. You got it, that's it." He moved one of his hands to rub steadily up and down her spine.

"I just," she choked out, "I couldn't breathe. The bullet…"

"It was just a dream. Just a dream."

"Castle," she whimpered, letting her body fall towards his. Her forehead came to rest under his chin and the rest of her crumpled against him.

He continued to rub her back and whisper soothing things until he felt her breathing rate return to normal. As he did so, he wondered just how often she woke up distressed from her nightmares and if anyone was there to comfort her.

When she seemed to have calmed down, he rolled back against the mattress, taking her with him. He felt her lift up and assumed she was returning to her position, but instead she settled down against him, her head against his shoulder. "Thank you," she said softly, "for being here."

"Always, Kate; always," he replied.

She lifted her head just enough to reach her lips to his cheek. After kissing him gently she put her head back against his shoulder, hoping to return to sleep, knowing that whatever happened tomorrow or the next day they would face it together.